Comments on: America: After the Fallhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/
a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justiceSat, 27 Sep 2014 17:28:19 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1By: Don Hawkinshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58892
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:19:45 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58892Truth to power and difficult to say the least when power and truth don’t rhyme.
]]>By: Max Shieldshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58889
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:40:14 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58889“The truth is all I need.”

I’d respond with the Jack Nicholson line, but I wouldn’t want to be “condescend[ing].

]]>By: Deadbeathttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58882
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:41:34 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58882Deadbeat, Wow! Not much to say. The light years that separate our thoughts would take more than our respective lifetimes, before communication occurred. I’ll respect your right to say it and leave it at that.

I reject your condescension and do not need your approval. The truth is all I need.

I am not saying government regulations are unnecessary. I’m saying that the need for them is due to the way in which the whole economics has exploded beyond human scale. On a human scale set up self-regulation would be not only appropriate, but I would add, more effective than large scale bureaucracy that is laden, all to frequently, the small business, and less so the transnational corporation that the regulation is suppose to oversee.

Once again Max you are incorrect. The function of the [Capitalist] government is to defend Capitalism not to manage human scale. Therefore the assumption that regulations were put in place due to human scale is incorrect.

Regulation, especially the regulations that grew out of New Deal had absolutely NOTHING to do with human scale. It had to do with the POLITICAL conditions of the 1930’s. Those regulations were useful and accepted by the ruling class during the period of post WWII profitability. By the time the 1970’s arrived, the rate of profitability began to wane and thus the ruling class responded with neo-liberalism

There are several problems with your analysis:
1. You misdiagnose Capitalism and thereby ignore inequality of power.

2. By ignoring ruling class power you unfairly shift the blame onto everyone.

3. Because you blame everyone you naturally blame scale and thereby bureaucracy. Scale and bureaucracy are not the problems. In fact only through scale will it be possible to overthrow Capitalism. But the real problem is the lack of POWER and inequality.

4. Because you fail to properly analyse Capitalism you ignore who CONTROLS the surplus. Workers DO NOT CONTROL the surplus. In fact since you like to lambast agriculture, agriculture crated the surplus that humans used to SHARE among themselves. Capitalism on the other hand is designed to prevent humans from sharing its surplus.

I think this is why you prefer the simplistic “solution” of “smallness” because in your mind it would be easier to share such surplus. However since you ignore inequality you fail to analyse that it would be also easier to co-opt the surplus of smaller and less defended entities.

The problem Max is that your perspectives is full of contradictions. I’m pointing out to you and others here on DV who may be attracted to your simplistic and infantile “green” rhetoric of its fallacies.

Really Max. This is why I ALWAYS leave the CONTEXT of your remarks intact before I respond it. It represents a careful read and consideration of the original context. This is something YOU Max refuse to do and you’ve been called on it not only by me but by others.

I am not saying government regulations are unnecessary. I’m saying that the need for them is due to the way in which the whole economics has exploded beyond human scale. On a human scale set up self-regulation would be not only appropriate, but I would add, more effective than large scale bureaucracy that is laden, all to frequently, the small business, and less so the transnational corporation that the regulation is suppose to oversee.

Take the Feds involvement in certifying organic farmers. This “oversight” does more to push out small farm operations, and does almost nothing to provide organic food to local communities. Large “organic” agribusinesses, easily flourish under such regulatory constraints. This is a simple example.

I am not an apologist for Capitalism. Again, anyone with the patience to read what I said, without prejudice, would easily see that I’m not. I’m simply saying that we need to think outside the ideological divide that makes economic discussions meaningless, fighting imaginary battles, while the problem remains untouched.

There are multiple forms of commerce. That’s a simple fact. No more or less. Whether some form of what we call Capitalism or Socialism existed before the more scholarly works of Smith, Ricardo or Marx is neither here nor there in this context.

I think I’ve adequately answered the issue of employment in my previous post. It may be a bit difficult for you to understand it without your usual lens of distortion.

]]>By: bozhhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58851
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:47:27 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58851Don, i agree,
everything is managed, ordered, wanted, etc. Even drugs are sold before they are properly tested. It may take yrs to test if a drug works. But people who manage america do not demand the drugs be proven to work for all people.
That may take decades and a mn people to use a drug to properly asses it. And the question arises whether we need all this drugs. Especially if our managers wld ban so much salt, fat, and sugar fromour foods.

But then there wldn’t be that much money for managers if drug corporations go out of business. tnx for your reply.

]]>By: Don Hawkinshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58848
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:23:42 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58848Capitalism the system requires it to be rigged and more then more and of course the last hundred years it worked sort of and now it appears the system is in control not human’s anymore. The answer just rig it more while keeping a few with the more. More is never enough it’s the system first chapter in how to win friends and influence people. This is amazing to see as the next year or so as we now know Earth is just one planet and would need maybe four to keep this going and just more rigging for the few for more will be well strangeness.
]]>By: Don Hawkinshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58845
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:43:46 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58845However when it comes to killing people in alien lands, hunch in me tells me; OK, u don’t know if that is right or wrong, but please err on the side of nonkillings, healthcare for all; right to be informed. tnx

Thinking Bozh and now here in the States the media after the killings at fort hood and here we go Muslim, terrorism and on it goes. Do we see err on side of reason or knowledge no just more hate. Again to think in this way being calm at peace seems far far away.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan

]]>By: bozhhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58842
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:26:36 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58842max,
i agree with what u say. I wld add, if i may, that all that is governed-allowed by and functioning under a hallowed constitution-governance.
If one wld say that american doings are not managed-controled by some people, then one wld have to conclude that it is managing itself.
And that is impossible.
So we go back to people; their thinking-needings-behaving-learnings, etc.

All that is happening under the ‘greatness’ of america, its hallowed constitution-governance.
And mismanaged or managed [mismanaging being nanaging also] by how many people?
i am not american; thus i’d leave that topic to americans.
I do note that all that happens or does not happen in US is controled by the one party system of rule.
Judiciary, which interprets the constitution, is a mere twig of the same party.
That party owns america; corporations being also part of one and only party is US.
If one wld have in US second party which when elected to power wld appoint own judges to supreme court, they wld come with different interpretations.

It is essential to note that any constitution is interpretative writ just like communist manifesto, bible, quran, torah, etc.
Such writs are dead but interpreted by the living
and not dead people who wrote them. So, we can’t ask issaiah, marx, moses, jesus, mohammad, adams, jefferson what they meant when they said this or that.
It can be proven very easily that meanings are not in any writ but solely in people.
And solely in living people. And US constitution is interpreted solely by one party.

All that i have said in this post comes directly from my nonverbal hunches, ideas, feelings, knowledge, observations. I am actually just talking about myself.
And fully aware how fallible i am, i don’t get that religious ab what is say; i.e., i am just theorising.
However when it comes to killing people in alien lands, hunch in me tells me; OK, u don’t know if that is right or wrong, but please err on the side of nonkillings, healthcare for all; right to be informed. tnx

A corporation can increase “productivity” with fewer and fewer US workers. This is due to a combination of off-shore outsourcing, improved processes for inventory management, and a variety of technologies which require less people-intensive work.

But, the crux of the problem, as I’ve stated it, is not simply increasing employment, but re-framing what work is. Let’s say we put every US citizen to work in the Military Industrial Complex building tools of mass destruction, directly or indirectly. Is that a healthy sustainable economy? Or the Obama lite version – building more roads to nowhere (which is the same difference).

What is work? If humans wish to contribute to the local and larger community, than does working in an insurance company that adds incredible overhead costs to the whole health care system, while denying millions access to health care provide such contributory work?

Not all work is useful, nor is it particularly healthy for the local and larger community. It may provide a paycheck, but at an expense that far and away exceeds any value.

The productivity which is increasing, as Wall Street stocks go up, is not simply disconnected to the lives of most people, even if it made work for those many people, it would be completely disconnected from anything useful, no no no…it would be disconnected from anything sustainable and healthy for the continued existence of the species we call homo sapiens.

This is a pathological economics which is not made better by doing more or even providing more jobs. In fact, it is the true that for a time, however limited, jobs were created, wages did go up, and life was one long Leave It To Beaver episode. And it was this total fraudulent, non-sustainable picture that allowed this cancerous Western existence to flourish its way into the creation of endless war for energy, and global control and irreversable climate warming. The maddness over the autombile…an extavagance that has killed millions and destroyed, community and lives and produces green gases in its wake. In fact it is the autombile that is the legacy of the last 70 years. That’s what we have to show, along with unsustainable cities with their skyscrapping shambles.

]]>By: Max Shieldshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58817
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:12:48 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58817Obstreperous label it what you will. Oil reserves are dented when growth and productivity increase. The GNP relies on that and calls it a “healthy” economy.

What forstalls oil depletion are wars in oil rich nations (Iraq has maintained its reserve because the oil stays in the ground); or because the larger consuming world significantly decreases it consumption.

Western/US wars are deeply oil dependent. The picture is not simple; but if productivity is up, ipsofacto, energy expenditure is up. An economics of material consumption demands high energy expenditure by definition. Today, there is no alternative to non-renewable energy which can sustain the continued growth of US/Euro/ Japan/ China/ India/Russia. The commanding nations will be those, not with military might, but resource riches, particularly energy-based.

The problem is as petro depletes, demands increase, the oil left is “tough oil”. Tough oil is located in places few want to go, and will require trillions of USD in investment.

Energy rules. We need a radically different economics that reduces energy needs.

There is not much dent in energy consumption because there is no Depression. The Recession has hurt the US more due to our self-imposed governmental efforts at suppressing business and employment. Government spending, and as you mention, wars keep the environmental impact cruising. Other economies, particularly China’s, are in far better shape and will stay that way as they become less dependent on US trade for their GDP. Hence, cap and trade and other self-imposed punishments will speed their ascendancy. The influence our culture will give way to theirs. Is that a trend for positive change? My children will definately take Mandarin classes, perhaps a little Russian as well.

Deadbeat, Wow! Not much to say. The light years that separate our thoughts would take more than our respective lifetimes, before communication occurred. I’ll respect your right to say it and leave it at that.

]]>By: Deadbeathttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58768
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:36:48 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58768Max Shields is wrong yet again…Regulations are problematic, but that is because of the need to have them at all. Self-regulation is only feasible when transactions are local and exchanges are naturally transparent. Even then it’s not perfect, but than the human condition is a liteny of imperfections.

Regulations are needed because of the Capitalist profit motive. Even if the exchanges were local, if the motives is solely for profit and if laws function for the Capitalist class it doesn’t matter. Just bribe the local enforcer. This desire to convince people that “smallest” is “good” is misguided. What matters is a system that promotes the common good over profits.

While a perfect state is not likely for the living human species, what with it’s never ending angst about EVERYTHING!, there are obvious flaws that occurred when classical economics dissipated. But before going there, and to the author of this article: Milton Friedman is NOT a classical economist – he is aligned tightly with neo-liberalism and neo-classical economics, pure and simple.

Classical “economics” is a euphemism for classic laissez-faire “free-market” Capitalism. By the 1930’s classical economics and especially Say’s Law was shown to be flawed and discredited. By the 1930 the United States could not use “Manifest Destiny” to encourage workers suffering under Capitalism into the “new frontier” to offset their exploitation.

The best way to look at economics (or any system) is to de-ideologize it. Looking at how economies establish themselves, when it brings the most to the most, and when it becomes more and more for fewer and fewer (economic collapse is when most people are left out of the picture) is perhaps the best way to peel off the good, the bad and the ugly.
This idea of separating economic from politics (ideology) began in the late 19th Century for the obvious reason of trying to promote economics (Capitalism) as a “science”. In other words to make it seem that Capitalism is “natural” and “immutable”. Economics is ALL about IDEOLOGY and therefore politics. It is clear that Max has absorbed the propaganda that economics is apolitical – an IDEA that clearly represent an IDEOLOGY – the ideology of Capitalism.

What you are left with is not socialism or capitalism, but relationships and how those relationships are either based on democratic principles or oligarchical ones. Financial institutions are meant to provide capital; i.e., they serve the economy not the other way around. This is not true today which is why Wall Street and Banks are thriving and national economics are collapsed and in despair.

Max’s logic is circular. Socialism defines a economic system that functions democratically. His argument is based on the propaganda that economics is somehow separate from politics when for centuries it was referred to as POLITICAL ECONOMY. The notion of needing “financial” institution is entirely political. Wall Street and private banks are in business to make a PROFIT. Providing “capital” is ancillary. These institutions are making profits AT THE EXPENSE of the economy.

Corporatism is a major part of the problem. Corporations are based on profit for shareholders, FIRST. This means that all goals and missions of these entities are subverted to profit for its own sake, at whatever that takes and means. And as such it has made PRODUCTIVITY king. Productivity, in today’s service, off-shore, financially-driven world requires fewer and fewer workers. So, productivity goes up even as unemployment goes up. The relationship between production and workers is utterly severed.

“Corporatism” is a euphemism by apologists of Capitalism in order to divert analysis away from this awful system. Capitalism is based on PROFIT for the owners. “Corporatism” is just another form of Capitalist “ownership” of the means of production used to product PROFIT for the owners. Therefore “corporatism” is an OUTGROWTH of Capitalism and profit-making and a struggle to end “corporatism” will still keep Capitalism in place. It is clear that apologist of Capitalism like Max chooses to fool the public in order to maintain his advantages and privileges.
Even if there was no corporation, Capitalists are not bound to share their profits that they extract from workers. They can still pay subsistence wages and exploit workers. In this arrangement the power continues to remain with the Capitalist class and is not shared among workers.

Which brings us to one of many bottom lines – Production to what end? What is it we produce and why? And are these needs or fabricated wants? And if they are the latter what role to humans have in producing these wants? None of this even begins to touch the real issue – ENERGY. The kind of energy that makes the material world of economics rotate. The inability to shift gears, to manage consumption, to shift from an economics of consumerism, and yes, productivity to one of REAL NEEDS, is what is called for. None of this is ideologically based.

Max contradicts himself because he is such a hell-bent apologist of the Capitalist system. “Humans” do not control production only a “small” (which Max believes is good) class of people called “Capitalist” controls production. Max chooses to blame consumption rather than the profit motive which encourages DEMAND in order to sell products (of various utility) for PROFITS. However over the past 30 years especially, Capitalist has been in control of the HUMAN NEEDS meaning that the greatest rise in cost has been crucial human needs – housing, transportation, education, child care, and regressive taxation. Thus Max is engaging in the classic “blame the victim” rhetoric in order to divert the blame away from Capitalism and the profit motive with gobbledygook.

Of course trade is totally regulated. These regulations have been established through the World Bank and Trade Agreements that favor the powerful. It was not the deregulation as much as who has created the last round of regulations – the Corporations themselves.

Sell that line to the railroads, airline pilots, and the host of industries where regulations has been relaxed or rollback since the late 1970’s. In fact NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO sought to “normalize” regulation to the lowest common denominator. It is an attempt to DEREGULATE nations who had stricter laws. Since the corporations are Capitalistic ergo the WTO is actually providing a “FREER” and “FEE-ER” market.

All of this is made possible because we have no way of harnessing a corrective course, because our politics are owned by our corporate entities, and guided by the school of neo-classical economics, with a compliant media all working to make what we have happen, and to sustain it until it implodes.

You forgot to include yourself Max into that equation. Your rhetoric is full of delusion, to quell dissent and to sow confusion.

The depression we are in will create, paradoxically, a repreive from energy depletion. The less consumption, the less energy used. But this depression seems to not have made as much of a dent in the reduction of energy expended – after all we are in constant war, and in 3 or 4 nations which requires enormous energy consumption.

I guess Max you’ll be happy with 100% unemployment since there will be less “consumption” under such conditions of misery so long as YOU happen to be wealthy enough to be immune from such misery. You are a very SELFISH INDIVIDUAL but then again that IS what Capitalism is all about.

]]>By: Obstreperoushttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58764
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:29:23 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58764No ridicule. It’s just boring. You can be a shill for collectivist oppressors if you like. I hope you’re part of the power structure when it’s all over, or else you’re screwed like all of the sheep.
]]>By: Deadbeathttp://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/america-after-the-fall/#comment-58761
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:22:19 +0000http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=11741#comment-58761Max Shield writes …

Capitalism in the form the Smith and Ricardo presented has certainly not been present since then, and like much theorizing never really existed in most nation-states.

Smith and Ricardo were APOLOGIST for the system. Capitalism was under way a century before they wrote about it. And it was the SLAVE TRADE that help to bolster the system. The Capitalists needed apologists like Smith and Ricardo to JUSTIFY the cruelties of the system.

Unfortunately Mr. Shields refuses enlighten himself and spread foolishness, unintelligence, and duplicity (FUD) in this forum.